Andrew Spittle » design

Parking Lots as Public Spaces

Andrew Spittle — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:48:02 +0000

Taking Parking Lots Seriously, as Public Spaces. Perhaps parking lots don’t have to be dead zones in cities. Would be neat to see some of the ideas deployed on a larger scale.

Graphic designers defined

Andrew Spittle — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:45:41 +0000

Graphic designers don’t make things pretty. Graphic designers solve problems. They work with research, they analyze and watch, they test and iterate, they tell stories. They’re not coloring things in. The graphic in graphic designer is not limiting or to be taken literally.

Mark Boulton – “Visual Design is Not a Thing” from The Manual vol. II.

From the workshop: Don’t steal my Theme Options

Andrew Spittle — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:45:44 +0000

From the workshop: Don’t steal my Theme Options. Great writeup on theme options in Duet by Andy at the Theme Foundry. When you put this much thought and care into the settings of your product you are going to create a wonderful product.

The challenges of working remotely

Andrew Spittle — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:12:50 +0000

The challenges of working remotely. Sage advice from Sam Brown about how to make working remotely a success. Much of what he writes holds true to my experience of the last two years.

Status

Andrew Spittle — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 04:51:57 +0000

Tonight’s plan: Lakers vs. Clippers on ESPN Radio and crafting mockups for a theme Daniel and I are working on. It’s a good night.

The Readable Future

Andrew Spittle — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:32:06 +0000

So sad and so true:

No app built for reading starts with the premise that the publisher has done an acceptable job.

Brent Simmons – The Readable Future.

Americhrome

Andrew Spittle — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:15:00 +0000

Americhrome. File this under things that make complete sense but which I had never thought about or realized before. It turns out the federal government has an official color palette for everything they contract out for. Every time I see a road sign I’m going to think of this now.

Pub Rules

Andrew Spittle — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 03:54:48 +0000

Pub Rules. In a follow-up of sorts to the quote I posted yesterday Brent Simmons writes about what he would do if in charge of a publication. I think it will only be a matter of time before we see someone try this with a large-scale site. I bet that when they do they’ll supplant whatever the main source is for that community. The trick will be sticking to these principles as the site grows and not becoming a bloated mess of “business opportunities.”

News sites as “Angry fruit salad on meth”

Andrew Spittle — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 03:28:47 +0000

Don’t let your drive for advertising dollars undercut your purpose:

I made the mistake of going to a website today. It’s understandable, of course — everybody does it, from time to time — and I’m sure I’ll forgive myself, eventually.

I don’t mean just any website, of course, I mean a publication. A place where a business publishes interesting things that I like to read.

I couldn’t hit the Reader button in Safari fast enough. In fact, I couldn’t hit it at all, so stunned was I by the flickering colorful circus the page presented. It was like angry fruit salad on meth.

Brent Simmons – The Pummeling Pages.

The Hit List sync

Andrew Spittle — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:04:52 +0000

It’s no secret that I love The Hit List. The app serves as my carefully organized digital brain. Sometimes it’s the really little things that make an app fantastic.

This morning I opened it up for the first time since Friday. I had already left my apartment so I was out of WiFi range. To pull data, many other apps, including Mail and Tweetbot, prompt if you’d like to connect to WiFi.

This is a pain because it makes syncing my data a two-step process. The Hit List does it right. It recognizes that I’m on 3G with data and just syncs. No prompting. Let me figure out WiFi later.

I love this because it shows that the developer considered the fastest way to let people get their data synced and get working. When I open an app it’s because I want to do something. The sooner you let me do that the happier I’ll be with your software.